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Damia Bouic • Apr 14, 2015

Artist's Drive: A Sol 950 Colorized Postcard

Curiosity is driving again, and discovered a nice landscape at sol 950. She's gone inside a valley named "Artist's Drive." This valley gives a panoramic view covering a portion of Gale flats, and gives us a peek at Mount Sharp. We are still at the foothills, after a journey close to 10 km. I decided to colorize the black and white panorama that I've produced from Navcam frames taken at this location. Here's my technical process behind creating the colorized panorama. First, start with the grayscale sol 950 Navcam panorama inside Artist's Drive (featuring special guest, Mount Sharp):

Artist's Drive, sol 950 Navcam panorama
Artist's Drive, sol 950 Navcam panorama Image: NASA / JPL / MSSS / Damia Bouic

How about adding some extra sky? This how you do it.

Artist's Drive, sol 950 Navcam panorama - sky added
Artist's Drive, sol 950 Navcam panorama - sky added Image: NASA / JPL / Damia Bouic

Next, colors. To colorize it, I used the color palette of these Mastcam images taken the on sol 949. This a little bit basic and bichromic. But, colors will be more and more rich.

Artist's Drive, sol 950 Navcam panorama - Mastcam color added
Artist's Drive, sol 950 Navcam panorama - Mastcam color added Image: NASA / JPL / MSSS / Damia Bouic

Here's the rover in grayscale again. I used colors from the latest selfie done by MAHLI in order to colorize it:

Color removed from Curiosity
Color removed from Curiosity Image: NASA / JPL / MSSS / Damia Bouic

Rover part finished:

Curiosity colorized
Curiosity colorized Image: NASA / JPL / MSSS / Damia Bouic

Rocks colorization is nearly done. I'll have to do the bedrocks and sands variations.

Curiosity and rocks colorized
Curiosity and rocks colorized Image: NASA / JPL / MSSS / Damia Bouic

After working out the rocks, the sand, the overall color, and the rover again (arggh wires!!!), it's done!

Artist's Drive, sol 950 (colorized Navcam panorama)
Artist's Drive, sol 950 (colorized Navcam panorama) With just shy of 10 kilometers on the odometer, Curiosity paused in a valley named Artist's Drive to gather in this view on sol 950 (April 8, 2015). This is a Navcam panorama that has been artistically colorized. Garden City and Pahrump Hills are on the left, in the distance; Mount Sharp peaks from behind the walls of Artist's Drive at center; and the way ahead lies to the right.Image: NASA / JPL / MSSS / Damia Bouic

And maybe you're wondering what the color layer looks like?

Color basis for panorama
Color basis for panorama Image: NASA / JPL / MSSS / Damia Bouic

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